Do You See Me?
by sexierthanthetardis
Summary: Castiel Novak looses his sight in a house fire and moves to Lawrence Kansas for a new start. Here, he meets Dean Winchester; his best friend and secret crush.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter Text

For the first five years of his life, Castiel was a normal kid. Well, maybe normal wasn't the best word for a five year old with seven older siblings and parents who spend most of their time arguing, but to people who didn't know about that he at least appeared to be normal. Then a month after his fifth birthday was the house fire that took away his parents, his vision, and his only chance of being normal.

After all of his siblings finally got out of the hospital with injuries ranging from loss of vision to third degree burns, his oldest siblings decided that they should move somewhere far away from their old home; trying to avoid all the terrible memories emanating from there. By the time Cas turned six, Michael, Naomi, and Lucifer had decided on a house in Lawrence, Kansas.

At first Castiel didn't have any friends. Michael homeschooled him while he tried to adjust to his lack of vision, but after a few months some of his younger siblings, Anna, Balthazar, and Gabriel, convinced Michael that Cas really needed to be around other kids. They took him to the park that was right down their road where he met his now best friend Dean Winchester.

It was a bit of an awkward first encounter. Cas was sitting underneath a really large tree when Dean fell out of the tree directly on top of him.

"I'm so sorry," Dean had said, helping the smaller boy up off the ground.

"It's fine," Cas said in the general direction of the other boys voice.

Dean looked at the other boy quizzically for a moment.

"Is there something wrong with you?" he asked, his seven year old self lacking a filter.

"I'm blind," Cas replied.

Dean was amazed at this and spent the next couple of hours talking to his new friend. After talking for a while they found out that they lived across the street from each other and after a few minutes of begging, Dean convinced Naomi to let Cas sleep over at Dean's house for the night; provided his parents were okay with it. After that it wasn't long before the boys were together all the time. After a while the boys even convinced Michael to let Castiel enroll in public school so that the boys could spend more time together.

Of course, they weren't together all the time. In classes where Cas was alone he was picked on pretty badly; after all he was a blind orphan with creepy siblings who's only friend was Dean Winchester, but he still preferred the extra time with Dean to spending all day with his siblings. Besides, he could handle a little bullying. For years everything was fine and Castiel was happy, but then around freshman year things started getting complicated.

Castiel had a crush on his best friend, and he had no idea how to handle that.


	2. Chapter 2

The boys had a tradition of spending the week before the first day of school at down by the river beside Dean's house. They were usually camping for most of the summer anyways, so their siblings and parents usually didn't care. The two of them had spent so much time on the banks of the river over the years that Cas knew his way around almost as well as he knew his own house.

It was Saturday night, the last night before they had to go home and prepare for their first day of high school on Monday morning, and so they decided to spend their time doing some last minute fishing instead of sleeping. Over the last few years Cas had figured out how to fix and bait his line without his friend's assistance, even though Dean was still scared the kid was going to get a hook stuck in his hand despite the fact He had more injuries from fishing than his blue eyed friend.

It was around two thirty in the morning and Castiel had spent the few hours, and days really, trying to build up the courage to come out to his best friend. He knew that Dean wouldn't care, after all Sam had dated a guy a few months ago before he met his current girlfriend Jessica and the older Winchester hadn't thought anything about it, but that didn't make it any less terrifying.

"Can I tell you something, Cas?" Dean said, breaking the silence they had been in.

"Of course you can," Cas replied, turning to face his friend.

"I think… I think I'm bisexual."

Castiel was silent for a moment.

"I'm gay," he replied.

The two were quiet for a few minutes after that.

"Can I ask you a weird question?" Dean asked.

"Sure."

"How do you know if you like someone if you can't see them?"

Cas chuckled. "Because I'm not as shallow as you."

"Very funny," Dean said sarcastically, "Seriously. I'm curious."

"Well," Cas said, readjusting in his chair, "I guess I just kinda fall for their personalities. Like if they're nice and funny and things like that. You probably would too if you didn't stare at people's asses for more than two seconds."

"I do not stare at people's asses."

"You were staring at that Lisa chick's ass the other day," Cas said pointedly.

"She doesn't count," Dean said, "That girl has the greatest ass I have ever seen."

Cas was about to reply when his fishing pole was nearly pulled out of his hand. He quickly grabbed it and reeled in a huge bass that almost managed to escape the two boys twice before they managed to get it into the fish cooler. When they were done, both boys decided it was probably time to go to bed since neither of them wanted to wrestle any more fish. They both crawled into the tent and went to sleep, enjoying their last night of freedom before the school year began


	3. Chapter 3

High school had been worse than Castiel was expecting. He had been bullied in middle school, but high school was completely different. Most of the freshmen were picked on, but when the upperclassmen realized he couldn't see, he became the primary target for nearly everything. Paper balls were thrown at his face with the knowledge that he wouldn't see them coming. Legs would trip him in the hallway without warning. When he was walking down the halls to get to class he would randomly be picked up and spun around so he didn't know where he was and would have to ask the nearest teacher to help him to class so he wouldn't be late. It was still the first week of school and he was this close to switching back to homeschooling.

The only thing keeping him from doing so was the five classes he shared with Dean. Right when he was ready to give up he would hear his best friend's voice and suddenly school wasn't so bad anymore. He could handle the bullying, even if it was hard.

At least that's what he told himself as he was shoved into a tiny cramped locker at the end of the day Friday by some seniors. He sighed loudly as he waited for someone to walk by and find him. He spent about twenty minutes when he started to hear someone calling his name.

"I'm over here," he called back.

There was the sound of running and then a sudden stop.

"Cas?" It was definitely Dean's voice now.

"I'm in the locker."

Dean found the locker his friend had been trapped in and, after failing to just pull it open, started trying to pick the lock. It took a few minutes, but eventually he managed to pull his friend out of the small confining locker.

"What the fuck happened, dude?" Dean sked as they started walking down the hall.

"I got shoved in a locker."

"I figured that part out," Dean said, "_Why _were you shoved in a locker?"

"Because I'm a freshman and the whole blind thing makes me an easy target."

Dean was silent for a moment.

"People are picking on you because you're blind?"

Cas wanted to tell his friend about the torment, but he knew that was a bad idea. Dean gets into enough fights as it is; having him fight his battle for him wouldn't really help anyone.

"No, it was probably just some seniors being jerks," he said as they made their way out of the building, "It's Friday, what do you wanna do when we get home."

Dean didn't seem happy with the change of subject, but continued anyways.

"Sam's having Jess over so I was thinking we could hang out at your place."

"Sounds good. We can get a head start on that paper for next week."

"Or we could play video games," Dean said.

"If you put it off until the last minute you're going to fail."

"Video games it is!"


	4. Chapter 4

Dean get talkative when he wants to avoid something, so Sunday evening when he was trying (and failing) to write his English paper, he couldn't shut his mouth for the life of him.

"Have you ever wondered if World War two would have happened if guns were never invented?" he randomly blurted after adding one measly sentence to his paper.

"What is it like in that head of yours, Dean," Cas said in reply.

"Just think about it. If we kept fighting with swords than maybe World War One would have ended differently and Germany wouldn't have rose to power and started conquering shit and we wouldn't have had World War Two. Maybe there wouldn't have been any world wars. Maybe America would have lost the revolutionary war and then we would still be British. Maybe we wouldn't even be British; maybe I would be like German or Spanish or something and you would be like Russian or Italian or some shit. My name wouldn't even be Winchester anymore-"

"How is it you can think like this but you can't even write a one page paper about your favorite author?" Castiel interrupted.

"Because this is a lot more interesting than William Shakespeare." Dean replied.

Cas laughed, laying back on his bed next to his friend. "Why did you pick Shakespeare anyways? You didn't even read Romeo and Juliet in eighth grade, when it was required, because you got bored."

"I couldn't think of anyone at the time," he said, exasperated.

He flopped onto his back and rubbed his eyes with his palms.

"Who did you do, anyways?"

"Lewis Carrol," Cas replied

"And who the fuck is that?"

"Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, The Hunting of the Snark, and Jabberwocky."

Dean remembered Cas reading those to him when they were younger. Cas spent a lot of time reading to him in the earlier stages of their friendship. It had been the Dark haired boy's favorite thing to do before he had a friend, and he wanted to share the fun with Dean. When Sam bought Castiel some "Blind kid" videogames, the pair stopped reading as much; and they hadn't really picked up since then.

"I should have said Lewis Carrol. Now I'm stuck with fucking Shakespeare," he rolled over to look at his friend, "So Cas-"

"I am not writing your paper for you,"

"Please!" he pleaded "I promise this will be the only one this semester."

Castiel could practically _hear_ the puppy dog eyes Dean was throwing at him. He sighed loudly.

"I swear Dean, this is the only one. Get your pencil ready."

Dean scrambled to grab his pencil as his friend started telling him what to write. Cas knew that this wouldn't be the last time he would be doing an assignment for his friend, but his still went with it anyways. When they finished the paper, Dean hugged his friend unexpectedly and then moved to put his things in his backpack. Cas could feel himself blushing profusely as his friend recommended they play videogames until it was time for dinner. Cas agreed, and tried to ignore the butterflies in his stomach as they shouted commands at the game console. He hated the feeling he got when they were together, but what he hated even more is when they're _not _together.


	5. Cassidy morgan

Castiel opened his window when he heard Dean tossing rocks against it. His green eyed friend quietly crawled off of the tree branch he was on and jumped into Castiel's bedroom. Once he was inside, he silently closed the window and locked it back.

"Thanks for letting me stay over," he said.

"Just be glad no one came up here to check on us. Where were you anyways?"

Dean fell back on the bed, and Cas followed suit.

"With Cassidy Morgan."

Cas could hear the smile in his voice. Since they entered the tenth grade, Dean had been sleeping with practically every girl (and a couple guys) that he laid his eyes on, and Cas still wasn't sure how he felt about that. He was glad that his friend seemed happy, but he didn't like the feeling he got in his stomach when he thought about Dean being with someone.

Dean bumped his shoulder. "We should really get you laid sometime. You've been really stuffy lately."

"I'm not stuffy; I'm just the responsible one."

Dean rolled his eyes even though his friend couldn't see it.

"Sure, that's the reason you're a virgin."

Cas gave him a shove that sent him off the bed. Dean made a whining noise, and Cas just laughed.

"There's nothing wrong with me being a virgin. Besides, you need a boring friend to tell your parents you're staying over while you sleep around with half the school."

"True," he said, climbing back up onto the bed, "But seriously, if you want I can find you someone -"

"That won't be necessary."

"Fine, be a prude. So what do you wanna do?"

"Sleep,"

"This is what I mean by stuffy."

"It's like 2 in the morning."

"Midnight snacks it is!"

Dean hopped off the bed and Castiel sighed before reluctantly following him down to the kitchen. His friend could be exceptionally annoying at times, and if he was being perfectly honest, he kinda loved that about him.


	6. Research paper

"That's it, I'm going to become a hobo," Dean said, banging his head on his desk.

Dean's grades had fallen significantly throughout his sophomore year. Cas had managed to help him bring most of his scores up to passing, but he was still below the line in English. His teacher, Ms. Missouri, had told him he could still pass her class if he managed at least a 90% on his final 10 page research paper. Cas had agreed to help him stay focused, which was difficult with Dean's tendencies to give up every three or so sentences.

"If you're a hobo, no one will have sex with you. Come on, you've got seven pages already. You can do this."

Dean huffed and continued typing. After shuffling through his notecards for a quote, he sighed.

"I could be a stripper. They make good money."

"Work Dean," Cas said, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Dean rolled his eyes, even though his friend couldn't see it, and continued working on his paper. He finally finished his paragraph and sighed again, rubbing his eyes.

"Can I take a break yet?"

"How many pages do you have?"

"Like, seven and a half."

Cas sighed. "Fine. But only ten minutes; you have to be finished by Monday."

Dean smiled and jumped up from the desk, flopping onto his bed next to his friend. Cas smiled, thinking that Dean was just like an excited puppy. Cas heard a crunching sound and turned to look at his friend.

"What are you doing?"

"Eating chips."

Cas sat up. "Where did you even get those?"

"That is a secret."

Castiel reached over and took away the bag of chips his friend had managed to sneak into his room.

"No eating in my room, assbutt!"

Dean laughed and then, without warning, tackled his blue eyed friend. He grabbed the bag of chips and tried to put one in his mouth, but Cas tackled him from behind and knocked him to the floor. Dean let out an "Oof" when his back slammed into the carpet, but immediately flipped over so he was on top of his friend. Dean was straddling the smaller boy's hips, holding his chest down with one hand and loudly munching on a chip with the other hand.

"I win," he said, cockily.

Castiel was going to make a smart comeback until he realized he position the two of them were in. He started blushing furiously and prayed that Dean would get off of him without noticing.

"You know, Cas, you should really exercise more. Your cheeks are already pink."

Castiel blushed more as he pushed the larger boy off of him.

"You should get back to work if you want to finish your paper in time."

"Ugh!" Dean said, walking back over to the desk. As he typed, Castiel cursed himself for blushing so hard. If he didn't get a hold on this crush of his, he wouldn't make it through all these study sessions.


End file.
